Simple headaches produce varying degrees of pain. Generally, such pain can be relieved by treatment with analgesic pain relievers such aspirin and ibuprofen.
More chronic headaches, such as migraine and "cluster" headaches, most often, do not respond to such treatment. Such headaches almost always require very strong medication for their relief if they can be relieved at all.
Patients having the propensity for headaches of these types are prone to repeated attacks that may produce extremely severe pain that sometimes cannot be abated even with the use of the strong medications. Often, the amount of medication required to ease the pain results in side effects that can be a severe as the headaches and may linger for extended periods of time.
In recent years, it has been discovered that relief or abatement of the headache pain can be obtained when the patient inhales one hundred percent oxygen although rebound headaches do sometimes occur. It is not fully understood why the oxygen therapy is effective.
While attempting to determine why the oxygen therapy works, it was determined that chilled air, when inhaled, provides relief or complete abatement as effectively as oxygen and apparently without the rebound headaches. In addition, the chilled air therapy has no side effects and can be made into a light weight, completely portable device.
The chilled air device is simple in construction and use. It requires little maintenance and can be unobtrusively carried into an office, school or the like and used while performing usual personal routines. If desired, more sophisticated chilled air devices can be provided for more or less fixed use, such as in hospitals or in the home.
One of the problems in using the oxygen therapy is the potential for explosion or fire. Smokers are reluctant to use the oxygen therapy because of the danger of fire. Non-smokers are also exposed to the possible danger unless they are extremely careful about where the oxygen is used. Manifestly, the use of oxygen in an office or classroom is prohibited. Thus, the patient suffering from migraine or "cluster" headaches cannot attend class or remain at the office. No such danger exists with the use of the chilled air device and therapy.
Another problem that exists with the oxygen therapy apparatus is that the bottles utilized to hold the compressed oxygen are very heavy due to the pressures involved and may necessarily be rather large because of the volume of gas used in the treatment. A regulator must be used to control the outlet gas pressure adding to the complexity, cost, weight and size of the oxygen device. The chilled air device on the other hand can be extremely small and compact since no compressed gases are used. The device generates the chilled air with little power required and with little noise.
One object of this invention is to provide improved apparatus for the relief of headache pain. Another object of this invention is to provide an improved method for the relief of headache pain.